Babylon 5

[moi621 (imported)]

Now before you tell me that Star Trek had an ensemble cast, it did not have a coherent plotline for more than one year at a time. It was not one story from beginning to end. That's not a criticism.

Au Contraire

Later Star Treks did have plot lines that went over episodes while each episode was a self sufficient story for the uninitiated. Consider Enterprise and Deep Space 9.

BAB 5 did the same.

Moi

Is there a Bab 5 dictionary or encyclopedia around as for Arthurian legends, Tolkien and Trek?

[Dave (imported)]

DS9 ran from 1993 to 1999 (six years)

B5 five ran from 1993 to 1998 (five years) with five TV movies and a one year spinnoff series (Crusade)

J. Michael Straczynski says that Paramount had his "series bible" and concept from as early as 1989 and believes that they used it to develop DS9. I don't know what the truth is but between the two series, B5 has the greater following.

[Riverwind (imported)]

As much as I loved DS9 and Star trek B5 was different in that from the pilot to the last show is was one continues story, as Dave said, looking forward or back all the dots were connected.

River

[kyennamo (imported)]

As much as I loved DS9 and Star trek B5 was different in that from the pilot to the last show is was one continues story, as Dave said, looking forward or back all the dots were connected.

River

That's that made it better. Too many shows get cancelled b4 they can make it as far as b5. Im glad b5 was allowed to run its course

[moi621 (imported)]

How many Minbari does it take to change a light bulb?

Forget it, just when they're about to get the job done they give up.

How many Centari does it take to change a light bulb?

One. But, in the glorious days of the old Empire a Centari could have a thousand light bulbs changed by a thousand servants at a single whim.

How many . . . light bulb jokes may not carry as much cultural weight as when Bab5 wrote those jokes into the series as to stay, hip with the times.

Any other similar temporal cultural jokes remembered?

Moi

How many Polacks does it take to change a light bulb?

3! One to hold the bulb and two to turn the latter.

Those were the days.

[YourPhriendlyAuthor (imported)]

Not so off topic. I read about superheroes and watch the TV programs and movies that they inspire but Babylon 5 was unique in science fiction in that an ensemble cast got the full character treatment and the plot line of the characters extended five years. It is the story of the people on the Babylon Five station for five years with forward and backward references to future and history.

Now before you tell me that Star Trek had an ensemble cast, it did not have a coherent plotline for more than one year at a time. It was not one story from beginning to end. That's not a criticism.

The difference is like comparing The Chronicles of Narnia with the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. One is a single story, the other is a collection of episodes.

Dave,

One thing that *really* set B5 apart from *any* of the Star Trek series was that things actually *changed*! JMS responded to a viewer complaint about the characters changing:

Losing the characters she's come to enjoy? No. But the characters are changing. That's the point, and that's been the intent from day one. But what's the alternative? I've heard ST fans complain loudly and bitterly that after 7 years of TNG being on the air, nobody's really changed, nobody's been promoted into different ships or major changes in responsibilities...they've had Riker as XO for seven years, which in the real military would mean his career is *over*.

Change is the only other option.

The goal, from the start, was to create an overall story, but which would also require arcs for every single major character. They're all going somewhere. In many cases, that "somewhere" plays into the larger arc; in some cases, not. If a woman is single, then gets married, then gives birth, and she's your friend, have you "lost her" just because she's gone through these changes? Of course not. She has changed, in good or bad ways, but she's still the same person.

If you look at ST, the characters never really had as much *depth* as the B5 characters. In fact, one of my *biggest* complaints about the later series (TNG and after) was that they succumbed to what I call "Perfect People Syndrome"! The Enterprise/DS9/Voyager crews Could Do No Wrong; there never seemed to be any doubt about who was right, no *real* moral ambiguity, nothing that really *changed* them! I remember one episode of Voyager where B'elanna Torres had an evil *thought*, and she was sentenced to have that thought removed via some mind-sifter. Captain Janeway stopped it from happening by basically explaining that the Voyager crew was perfect, and therefore, morally superior.

So even if ST *had* ensembles, it was nowhere *near* the same as what B5 did! To be human is to be *flawed*! B5 understood that; ST didn't...

-YPA

[Riverwind (imported)]

That is for sure, maybe that is one of the reasons I loved B5, it was more real.

River

[erikboy (imported)]

Babylon 5... I am a great fan of sci-fi. But with age I have become more and more critical towards the series as my still very limited knowledge about universe around us grows. After a long time I watched Battlestar Galactica original series again. That seemed ridiculously simplistic. Awful. But at the time I saw Galactica first time, I was a big WOW!.

Many good sci-fi series since Original Startrek have been created. But I feel they get more and more similar despite all the unimaginably good special effects that have become available.

What irritates me most is 95% of races look like humanoids. More or less. Races behave like they have human psychology. Despite there have been good examples of different motivation system and psychology, like the Borg. Still, at the end very human like Borg Queen emerges.

I would like to meet species very different from ours in appeareance and behaviour. Not in Real Life of course

Then all the physics that should be valid in space simly isn't there! I could hear bangs and futuristic weapons fireing in absolute vacuum!

If there is anything going on in space it happens like there is a ground down below and horizon somewhere on the horizon. Also gravity seems to work on everything.

When engines are stopped then the whole ship slows down to standstill. How could that happen? There is no friction in space and there is no reference related to what ship could stop movement. there is no standstill objects in the Universe!

Gravity on the ships... Except B5 that creates gravity by turning, other ships use gravitygenerators which never fail even when the ship has been dead for centuries.

When ship explodes into pieces, these pieces will fly in different directions non stop. Instead I have seen many great battlefields with ship parts floating freely in close formation. Thats simply not possible in space.

When speed is accelerated close to lightspeed, then related to what object?

Also you can imagine forces that apply in such accelerations. At 3-4G which humans could withstand longer periods, it takes 3 full minutes to accelerate to mere 7kps, not few seconds. To accelerate to 250 000kps it takes full 3 months at 3G and undescribable amount of energy. How many Saturn V rocets? 50 000 for a small ship. If that acceleration happens in few seconds, then even thoughest metals would vaporize. If there are energy fields that could keep ships structure intact, the energy, put into that field is equal to energy put into acceleration plus energy that compensates acceleration with antigravity, so that humans inside the ship would not feel a thing. A tiny small glitch at such energies could mean total evaporization of the whole ship not a mere bump.

A lot of simple problems like that, makes using of wormholes the only acceptable way to cover distances measured in lightyears.

there are many similar aspects.

Allright, I think watching too realistic movies could be extremely boring and uneventful

[Dave (imported)]

Space travel in movies and books seems to always break the laws of physics. Break might be a weak word - violate comes to mind, frolic, rape, ignore, insult, forget ... are possible choices too...

And weapons fire - a good friend once said to me that with all that technology, they still couldn't shoot straight or hit a target.

[Riverwind (imported)]

Erikboy, I totally agree, today with all the CGI stuff they could easily create other beings that look other then human or a blob. They did a little of this in B5 but not much. Today they could do so much better and have not yet.

River